Nostalgic postcard wall hanging

As you might know from reading previous posts, I recently repainted and restyled two of my bathrooms while hubby was away at a conference. I plan to do a little show and tell video ~~after I get the drive to clean the bathrooms~~ one of these days, but in the mean time I thought I'd talk about some of the crafts that I put together to add to the decor.

The first project I'd like to share is this cute little wall hanging. I just love it! It is fun, easy to make and super cheap. My favorite kind!

First a little background... When we were in Hawaii late last year, I came across some adorable vintage-style postcards. They were inexpensive and cute and I just had to have them. Well, once we got home they were stowed away in a drawer and forgotten due to some of the family issues we soon experienced upon our return. Just the other day I was looking for something and stumbled across them, and decided to whip this little item up.

Since our downstairs bathroom now has a beachy/Hawaiian feel, I thought the postcards would be a wonderful addition. I also had a big blank space on the wall that I wanted to make use of so it seemed to be a perfect fit.

This project was inspired by these very cool magnetic photo ropes...

Magnetic Photo Ropes at the Photojojo Store!

But I wanted to add my own personal touch and use things I had on hand. Here are the super easy directions!

Gather a group of photos or postcards - use an odd number like 3 or 5 for the best 'look'. 7 will make for a very long wall hanging, but if that's what you want, go to town!
Use Mod Podge to coat only the front of each card. I used two coats but you can do more if you think you need to. The purpose of this is to add a little weight to them so they hang better. It will also preserve the images for posterity of course.
Once they are dry, figure out the order you want them to hang in and lay them out accordingly. Try to balance the images and colors so they look best. I had 3 landscape and 2 portrait oriented cards so it made my layout pretty easy to figure out.
Take your ribbon and lay it over the top of the postcards to figure out what length you will need. Of course your length will depend on the number of cards, the amount of space between each and how much you want to leave at the top and bottom of the hanging. Whatever the case, double the length of the piece above the top of the postcard and add a couple of inches. Also to be safe, add a couple extra inches to the bottom. You can always cut it away if you want to.
*Note 1 - I actually left my ribbon attached to the spool (at the top) because I wanted to make sure I didn't run short. Of course if you mess up, you can always remove the ribbon and start with a fresh piece, but if you're using scraps that might not be an option for you.
**Note 2 - You can nix the bottom piece altogether and just leave the bottom postcard without any extra ribbon below.
Start with your bottom postcard (again, leaving extra below it if desired) - turn it over to the back side and apply a thin strip of glue in a line where you will place your ribbon. Next, lay the ribbon piece on top of it and press down lightly. Repeat this for the next card up and so on until all your cards are attached.
Let the glue dry for several hours or however long it takes. I am impatient so I only waited about an hour, but that seemed to be good enough.
To make the top where the ribbon will be hung on a nail, I made a simple loop knot and then glued the extra ribbon to the back of the top postcard. You don't really have to have a knot, but I wanted the weight of the hanging to be on the ribbon itself. If you don't have a knot and choose to glue the ribbon to the back of the hanging then the laws of physics dictate that the weight of the hanging will be on the glue. That might be OK for yours, I just wasn't feeling that lucky.
For the bottom, I simply made a little bow and glued it on with Elmer's. I probably should have used my hot glue gun but I was being lazy. If you're not a fan of bows, any other embellishment would work as well and probably look even nicer.
As a final step, you may want to add a coat or two of Mod Podge to the back of the cards now that you have the ribbons attached. I opted to leave them au naturale and they seem to be doing fine.

So there you have it - an adorable postcard (or photo) wall hanging. This whole project took me about an hour including time spent waiting for the Mod Podge to dry. Add the hour for the glued ribbon and in one afternoon you too could have yourself an adorable new craft.